


Galatea

by saltandbyrne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Pornographic and Fetish Artwork Mentioned, Violence, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/pseuds/saltandbyrne
Summary: New York, 1957. Eames is a successful but lonely illustrator, content with his quiet life in his Greenwich Village studio. He supplements his commercial work with “specialty” pin-up illustrations and fetish art, spends his afternoons sketching at the beatnik cafe down the street, and passes his evenings drawing the love of his life.Eames’s muse is Arthur Darling, the dashing face of every cigarette ad and shaving-cream campaign Eames has ever done. Arthur is perfect for Eames, from the gleam of his dimples to the shine of his shoes. There’s only one problem -- Arthur doesn’t exist.When Eames saves the mysterious Mal from an attack, he learns that wishes can come true.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 145
Collections: Inception Big Bang 2020





	Galatea

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2020 Inception Big Bang. Thank you to the mods for organizing such an amazing event!
> 
> I was blessed with two artists for this event. 
> 
> LemonYellow [Tumblr post here!](https://lemon-yellow.tumblr.com/post/625129318460293120/inceptiversary-inceptionbigbang-2020-artwork)  
> MagentaBlack [Tumblr post here!](https://blackdyed.tumblr.com/post/625163716431872000/theyre-easy-in-each-others-company-at-home)
> 
> Thank you both for an amazing collaborative experience and for your breathtakingly beautiful artwork! This fandom and this humble writer are blessed with your talent.
> 
> Thank you to FaeGentry for the beta read!

Yusuf has a new drum set.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he actually maintained a consistent tempo. Eames can drown most things out when he’s focused on his work—the  _ thwunk _ of Mrs. Mastroni’s window fan across the courtyard, the lumbering drone of his ancient icebox in the corner of the room, the register-repeat of Olive working furiously on a new story about the plight of her comrades in the apartment below him, the gentle warble of Mr. Fint singing old Big Band standards as he hangs his laundry out to dry from his back window. All of these things can settle into the rhythm of the Village breathing around him, blurring into white noise as Eames shades the shapely legs of his current side-project. Suzanne looks lovely in high heels.

He’s almost forgotten Yusuf’s percussion when there’s a clang of cymbals and everything slows down. It’s not that Eames doesn’t like jazz. He saw Miles Davis at the Blue Note last week, a show Yusuf had dismissed as being too mainstream, and Eames had loved. He’s been playing “ _ Birth of the Cool” _ nonstop since he picked it up at the C-Note last month. Eames just wants his jazz to sound like something he can recognize as music, not the discordant riddle of Yusuf’s experiments. All art should have some beauty in it. Yusuf claims this makes him a Philistine, but Eames knows he’s just a romantic.

Eames closes his eyes as Yusuf launches into a barrage of drum-sounds that resemble artillery more than art. So much for his quiet and productive morning.

Tacked to the angled surface of Eames’s drafting desk is his latest commission. It’s for one of his regulars, a businessman in Toledo, Ohio. It’s a place Eames has no intention of ever visiting, although he owes good old Chip Greeley dearly. He’s covered half of Eames’s rent for the year.

Suzanne is one of the varied cast of characters Eames calls upon for his “specialty” illustrations. She’s his Amazon–-statuesque, buxom, with thickly-muscled thighs and broad shoulders. She stands with her hands on her hips, chin tilted at a haughty angle as she grinds one of her absurdly sharp heels into the groin of a pencil-necked man with a besotted expression on his face. No matter how many times Eames draws Suzanne dominating the small, adoring men in her unique world, Mr. Greeley and his particular brethren can’t get enough of her.

Suzanne‘s legs—the musculature is  _ everything _ to this crowd—will have to wait.

Ariadne would sneer at him as he ambles to the stove and pours the dregs of his percolator into a chipped mug. Eames loves Ariadne’s blistering cappuccinos, but he’s perfectly content to drink lukewarm coffee when no one’s around to judge him.

Eames sips his tepid brew and leans back against his kitchen counter. He could afford a better place than this studio. Marv has provided him with steady work for years, and he’s got a tidy sum stashed away. It’s not like his home is perfect. The ceiling leaks when it rains, and plaster dust trickles down on his plants and papers when Yusuf really gets going on the drums. The exposed brick walls are charming in their way, but the fireplace hasn’t been safe for decades and it gets drafty in the winter months. The bathtub sits out next to his kitchen sink. It’s not as though there’s anyone to see Eames when he uses it, but the idea of an enclosed room for bathing is appealing.

Then Eames tilts his face up to the skylights and remembers why he’ll never leave.

He faces west, so the full splendor of the floor-to-ceiling windows and their extended skylights won’t appear until late afternoon. Eames spends even the gloomiest days flooded with natural light, with the pitter-patter of the rain for company when the weather’s poor. It’s shaping up to be a gorgeous day, although September in New York is as mercurial as it is beautiful.

11:00AM is disgracefully late to call his apple “breakfast” but it’s his first meal, nonetheless. It’s the nature of Eames's building and his menagerie of bohemian neighbors. Eames sleeps when no one‘s making a racket, which means he’s in bed by ten some nights, or watching the sun creep in while Ernie tosses his paint cans around or whatever abstract nonsense he’s getting up to. Yusuf’s irregular “band rehearsal” had scattered in a haze of marijuana smoke at 2:00 AM last night, leaving Eames to get an almost-normal night's sleep. Unfortunately, it had also left Yusuf well-rested, and up seizing the day with a burst of percussive inspiration. Eames throws his apple core in the bin as a new barrage of snare drum threatens to shake the pictures off his walls.  _ Time for errands. _

He grabs his jacket and his hat. Eames may be a modern man of 1957, but he feels naked leaving without a hat.

Eames opens his door and starts as something black as midnight and fast as lightning streaks past his feet. He groans and turns back inside. 

_ “Here, kitty-kitty,” _ Eames coos, praying this is one of the friendlier wretches from Yusuf’s cattery. He likes this jacket. Yusuf swears he only has two cats, but Eames knows for certain there are at least five. They all love trying to sneak into Eames’s flat.

“I know, darling, you just need a break from that infernal noise, but you can’t stay here.” Eames creeps toward the fold of the Japanese screen that separates his “bedroom” from the rest of the studio, praying he doesn’t startle the poor creature into knocking it over. He’d carried it all the way from an antiques shop in Chelsea.

He crouches down, hand outstretched, and carefully strokes the soft underfur of an offered chin. After a few contented purrs, he swoops in and picks the cat up in his arms. With an affronted mewl, she ( _ he? _ All cats register as female to Eames’s uninitiated eyes, too many years doing caricature work) glares at Eames with a look of utter betrayal as he carries her outside and locks the door.

“Yes, yes, you’ll never forgive me, I know,” Eames murmurs to the writhing ball of fur under his arm. He slips his keys into his pocket and sighs.

“You know Arthur’s allergic to you, you little menace.”

Eames pauses with his foot on the stair. He’s been working on that. It’s just that Eames spends so much time alone in his studio. It’s easy to indulge his habit of having conversations with people who aren’t there. Olive gets drunk and sings rally songs out her window, and Yusuf once spent an entire summer trying to “subvert the trumpet.” No one looks at Eames askance if he dances around the apartment singing to the empty air. Yusuf’s cat chirrups at him, oblivious to Eames's fleeting embarrassment.

“You still have to go back to your daddy,“ Eames insists, scratching behind one ear as he carries her down the stairs. Yusuf has segued into some non-Euclidean time signature that has Eames’s temples throbbing by the time he reaches the landing. His door is cracked open, as it probably has been ever since Yusuf’s band—the name changes so often Eames has stopped keeping track—had stumbled out last night.

“Think you lost something.“ Eames sets black-cat on the floor gingerly, closing the door behind him with his hip. She saunters off, giving Eames a last disdainful look over her shoulder. He notes the expression; it would be perfect on one of his dominatrices.

“Eames!“ Yusuf finishes his infernal arpeggio with a flourish of crashing cymbals. “How’s my favorite pornographer?“

Yusuf doesn’t know the extent of Eames’s specialty work, but he’s seen enough of the more pedestrian cheesecake to get the gist.

“I am but a humble illustrator, Yusuf, nothing more.”

“You know you’re square with me, man.” Yusuf twirls a drumstick in the air. “Sorry she slipped out, cats will be cats and all that.”

Eames counts at least three of them lounging around Yusuf’s apartment, draped over the mismatched chairs and littered instruments like the end of a 4:00 AM set at the Vanguard.

“Are you coming to the reading at the Center tonight? Ernie’s doing a live painting to one of Mark’s poems.”

“I’ll try to make it,” Eames hedges. He’d been looking forward to a quiet evening sketching Arthur.

“I’m sure there will be a few eligible bachelors there,” Yusuf continues, perhaps misconstruing the soft expression on Eames’s face. “How come I never see you with a fellow, Eames?“

When Yusuf had moved in and announced himself as Eames’s new neighbor, bearing a Max Roach record and a bottle of suspect brandy as an advance apology for the noise, he’d taken one look at a portrait of Arthur hanging above his bookcase, remarked blandly, “Oh, so you’re a homosexual,” immediately critiqued Eames’s record collection, and that had been that. It’s another reason Eames will never leave this neighborhood. He may be lonesome, and the wind may come sweeping in through his broken flue, and he may be startled awake at 3:00 AM by Yusuf‘s latest stroke of musical anarchy, but he’s as much himself here as he’ll ever be.

“My standards are impossibly high, Yusuf. No one could possibly live up to you,” Eames says sweetly.

“I have but one love, and her name is ‘Jazz,’“ Yusuf proclaims, starting up a snare-heavy beat. Eames takes his cue to leave, smiling noncommittally at Yusuf‘s “See you at the Center!“

~

Eames leads a simple life.

It’s not that he doesn’t have taste. It’s just that so many of his life’s joys are ephemeral things–a warm bite of Ariadne’s baklava, the sun spilling over the wood floor on a late Sunday afternoon, when he captures the perfect slant of Arthur’s smile. Eames doesn’t need to spend much money to chase the small satisfactions that fill his life.

The C-Note is one of the great exceptions to this rule. South on Jones, left on Bleecker, and down a crumbling half-flight of stairs, his local record store waits for him, sleepy in the early afternoon when most of her patrons are sleeping off jazz-howl hangovers and cocaine blues.

“Eames!”

Ruth Fleischmann is the kind of New Yorker Eames adores—dyed-in-the-wool, with an accent that could shred paper and black coffee in her veins.

“Ruthie, dear,” Eames smiles at her warmly, where she’s shelving a new case of Elvis records. Ruthie’s feeling nostalgic today; Billie Holiday warbles over the speakers, warm and rich as she waxes about “Autumn In New York.” Eames already owns this record.

“What are you in the mood for?“

“Oh, I don’t know...” Eames shrugs, flipping idly through the new releases. “Change in the weather and all that.“

Ruthie narrows her eyes. It’s a vague answer at best, but he can't pinpoint it more than that. There’s something in an unexpected gust of cool air, the first crisp morning after the endless lazy heat of summer that makes a body want for company. Another season turns and here’s Eames, content and quiet in the life he’s carved out. It doesn’t mean he can’t yearn for more.

“That sublime melancholy,” Ruthie murmurs, and if that’s a reference or just Ruthie being Ruthie, Eames doesn’t know. She nods and flits out from behind her counter, as tiny and powerful as a hummingbird darting from flower to flower.

“You’ll love these.“ She returns with three LPs stacked in her hand. A bespectacled woman adorns the first one— _ Blossom Dearie _ . “She sounds like a schoolgirl, which would normally make me wanna throw things, but she makes it work. Magical.”

Eames has learned better than to argue with Ruthie. She taps on the next one.  _ Ray Charles _ .

“This guy’s blind. Fucking crazy, right?”

Eames frowns at the last album. “Country and Western, Ruthie? I don’t think—”

She sucks her teeth to cut him off. “Trust me. Patsy Cline has a voice that transcends genre. I hate all that honky-tonk shit, too.”

Eames surrenders, generally the wisest course of action when it comes to Ruthie. She’d given him the cold shoulder for weeks when he passed on her recommendation for Clyde McPhatter, just to come back with his tail between his legs and admit that he couldn’t get “Treasure of Love” out of his head. She tucks everything into a paper bag and sends Eames on his way, with a promise that he’ll come visit more often.

He has some shirts waiting at Pang’s Laundry so he heads there next. Eames loves the crisp, starchy smell of the laundromat, the air thick and fragrant with the iron-steam.

“ _ Nay hoh _ ,” Eames says as he descends the stairs. Pang’s is neat as a pin, every surface in the tiny storefront gleaming. 

“Mr. Eames!  _ Nay ho mah? _ ” Pang asks,  _ how are you? _ He’s been teaching Eames some Cantonese. He’d love to see China one of these days.

“ _ Hoh hoh _ ,” Eames answers,  _ I’m fine _ . “How is May?”

Pang’s daughter is studying art history at Oxford, and doing quite well if Pang’s enthusiastic response is any indication. Eames adds the neat stack of shirts to his cargo and meanders back home, stopping on the corner to wave at a familiar figure in head-to-toe black.

“Afternoon, Yaya,” Eames waves. Ariadne‘s grandmother is occupying her sentry-post on their front stairs, tucked into the decrepit folding chair she drags out when the weather is nice. Yaya‘s missing half her teeth, but she smiles broadly at Eames and waves back. It’s unclear whether Yaya actually speaks English, but she responds with an indulgent nod to Eames’s “Lovely day, isn’t it?“ Old women always take a shine to Eames, and he tries not to preen too much as Yaya coldly ignores a neighbor as he makes his way past her. She adjusts the kerchief on her head and waves Eames off.

Yusuf is still at it when he gets home. His new records will have to wait. Once he’s certain there are no feline refugees from Yusuf‘s lurking in the shadows, Eames settles back at his drafting table. Yusuf’s drums fade as he picks up where he left off with Suzanne and her towering stilettos.

Eames's blue work isn’t so different from his mainstream advertisements. It’s all about creating the right emotional response from the viewer. Soap should make them feel like all their sins can be washed away for the low price of 39¢; a sharp new hat promises to reinvigorate them with the fervor of lost youth; a new shade of lipstick lures housewives to recapture that first flush of love.

Suzanne is every stern mother, every ruler-wielding teacher, every tight-lipped nanny or taunting big sister Eames has ever known. She’s femininity writ large, creation and destruction rolled into one curvaceous package. She makes men feel small. Eames’s shoulders instinctively hunch down as he shades in the soft curves of her hips. Small can be humiliating, demeaning, emasculating. But small is also the simplicity of being a little boy, staring up at the towering women who love you and tend to you, free from responsibility and obligation. While this particular fetish does nothing for Eames personally, it’s simple work for him to summon empathy for the men who pay exorbitantly for his illustrations. It’s the same with all of Eames’s work, from the most outlandish fetishism to the blandest cheesecake. As he draws, Eames strips down to the barest emotional state and pours it onto the page. For those moments, as his pencils glide across the page, everything disappears except that emotional kernel of truth.

Eames doesn’t judge his clients. Eames knows what it is to want something he cannot have. Eames is one of the lucky few who can live his life in a semblance of peace, but he knows that men like him are sent to nervous hospitals or given exorcisms if they aren’t outright killed. He doesn’t judge the man paying for Suzanne‘s towering affection, any more than Eames should be judged for finding the delicate underside of Arthur’s wrist the most erotic thing on earth. 

“What do you think, darling?“ Eames murmurs to the empty air. Arthur would like the expression on her face, the perfect balance between derision and affection. He’d lean over Eames’s shoulder, one long finger tracing over her glistening calf. “A little more strength here,” he’d whisper, and of course he’s right, her calf muscle would contract more in heels so tall. “Thank you, love,“ Eames would whisper, but not before catching Arthur’s hand in his and pressing a kiss to that soft patch of skin above his tendon.

Even if Eames doesn’t always understand his clients’ sexual fetishes, he can’t judge them. He might not want someone to step on his testicles or dress him up like a pony, but he knows what it is to long for something he’ll never have. Eames’s dreams live in paper and ink just the same.

Eames jolts in his chair as his telephone rings. He always loses time when he draws—it’s been at least two hours based on the new spill of sun across his desk. He blinks as the telephone trills again.

“This is Eames,” he answers, holding the phone in his left hand as he shakes out his aching wrist.

_ “Eames, it’s Marv!“ _

Marvin Crew always sounds like he’s shouting. It doesn’t matter if he’s on the phone, in his office, or buying Eames a cup of the watery coffee at Tony’s on 48th, Marv is possessed of one voice and it is decidedly not for the indoors.

“Hello, Marv.“

_ “Any chance you can stop by for a visit this afternoon?” _

“Feeling lonesome, darling?”

_ “Yeah, I miss your snooty fucking accent. I’m here till five.” _

Eames can picture Marv slamming down the black telephone in his office. He sets his own receiver back gently and stretches his aching shoulders. A trip to Midtown is a small price to pay for earning his bread.

With a few strokes of his pencil, his Suzanne series is finished. He wraps it in his travel portfolio and fishes two subway tokens out of the little dish on his kitchen counter.

~

Under an electric blue sky, Eames exits the BMT at Herald Square. It’s not that he can’t appreciate the gaudy department stores and towering skyscrapers  _ (canyons of steel, indeed) _ , the bustling crowds and frenetic life of the city around him. It has its own brave new charm. Still, it’s sterile after the sleepy trees and townhouses of his neighborhood.

Marv’s office is in a nondescript building on 38 th , sandwiched between a pub and a sewing notions shop. The elevator lurches to the fourth floor, and Eames pointedly avoids eye contact with the woman next to him. Eames has seen all kinds of people come and go from Marv’s studio: doe-eyed women with tiny waists, delicate boys who would give Rita Hayworth a run for her money and probably frequent some of the bars in Eames’s neighborhood, broad-shouldered men who could have sprung to life from the pilfered bodybuilding magazines he’d hoarded as a clueless teenager.

The doors open, and Eames is sure to exit first, upending chivalry so the poor dear doesn’t think he’s following her. She visibly relaxes as Eames rings the buzzer for Marv’s office, and smiles politely as he holds the door for her.

Marv’s business is a family affair, a fact that had given Eames a greater shock than the most outré requests Marv had outlined at their first meeting all those years ago.

Marv’s sister Mimi appears to whisk away Eames’s sloe-eyed elevator mate, looping an affectionate arm over her shoulder and promising, “We have some beautiful things for today,” before they disappear into one of the back studios where Mimi does the photography end of their business. She’d tried to talk Eames into posing for her a dozen times before finally accepting his insistence that he’s strictly suited to pen and paper, although he’s flattered.

“There’s my guy,” Marv crows, slapping Eames on the back and unwrapping his latest drawings. “Bringing me work before the deadline?” Marv shakes his head. “If you were a dame I’d kiss you.” Eames rolls his eyes.

For all of Marv's bluster, Eames has never seen him treat any of the women or men in his little kingdom with anything but respect. Eames has spent enough time in the slick halls of Fifth Avenue advertising firms to know the difference between Marv’s good-natured compliments, and the unctuous innuendo thrown at the long–suffering secretaries of far more respectable establishments.

“Alas, Marv, we aren’t meant to be.”

Marv pulls a wounded face and clasps a hand over his heart, before leading Eames into his office. A grated window is half obscured by stacks of paper and decaying boxes. Eames is hardly a stickler about these things, but even he cringes at the rampant mess of Marv’s workspace. Arthur would hate it.

“I’m not the only one who wants to plant one on you.“ Marv fishes around to pull out a handwritten letter. “Old Twinkle-Toes was so, and I quote, ‘ _ entranced’ _ by your last illustrations that he wants a dozen more. I don’t know how you do it, buddy, but you’ve got the magic touch.“

‘Twinkle Toes’ is one of Eames's regulars. Eames has sketched a ballet company of delicate feet for him; dainty, shy little things that peek out from satin sheets and silk peignoirs. Eames shades them all the hidden blush of ballet slippers and private parts, that’s the trick with feet, the intimacy of them. Arthur has charming feet.

“Happy to take the work,“ Eames says. Drawing feet may be somewhat dull, but the stack of cash Marv passes him from his last commission more than makes up for it.

“Got a few more projects for you if you’re interested.“

Eames is between assignments for commercial work, so it’s not as though he has anything better to do. “Gladly.”

Eames could ostensibly make more money if he worked directly with his clients, but then he’d also have to deal with the legal implications of his work. It’s risky enough just to draw some of the things he does—Eames is violating multiple obscenity laws just creating some of his commissions, never mind selling and shipping them. He’d also have to deal with some of the more unsavory requests that he’d rather not contemplate.

“Mrs. Clarkson asked for you.” Marv hands him a sheaf of papers in her neat, flourished script.

“Lovely.” Eames likes drawing for Mrs. Clarkson. Maybe it’s the Englishman in him, but her Victorian schoolgirl stories delight him. She’s exacting–he once received a polite but firm complaint that he hadn’t drawn the right model of hairbrush–but her corsets and spankings and Head Girl hazing rituals are the sort of fussy, absorbing work he can lose himself in for hours.

“And Mr. Pigskin wants more of your locker room gents.” Mr. Pigskin gets his nickname from his love of American footballers in their skivvies, preferably roughhousing with one another in the locker room. He’d been a tough one to pinpoint—he likes the deniable homoeroticism of sport rather than the outright erotica Eames had initially offered him. It’s pin-up work at heart, all about the tease, an accidental erection just visible under a towel, that sort of thing.

“And I got a new thing. A baby fantasy.”

“You know I don’t draw children, Marv.” Eames recoils. Marv knows his limits, which are as broad as they are easy to interpret. Consenting adults, nothing too violent, and nothing too degrading to women. He’s open to a lot, but anything with children is a hard stop.

“It’s not a  _ real _ baby, Jesus, Eames, what do you take me for? This guy wants a grown fellow dressed up like a baby. Preferably,” Marv squints at the request letter, “with a potbelly and a generous posterior. Hey, if I’m not your type, maybe this guy would want a piece of the old Marv.” He pats his own generous belly and laughs. 

“Suppose I can give it a try,” Eames shrugs, adding the letter to his pile. He’ll have to think on that one. 

“Pleasure doing business with you, Eamesy.“

Eames walks home, saving his subway token for another day. The weather is lovely, with a crisp breeze rolling out the lingering haze of the late afternoon. Eames cribs features everywhere he goes—an interesting nose on a woman on Broadway, a particularly loping stride on a man crossing Seventh Avenue, a comically adorable Pomeranian and his equally rotund owner promenading down Greenwich. All of Eames's characters have bits and pieces of the people around him. Except for Arthur.

It is absurdly romantic to say that Arthur came to him in a dream. Eames had woken up one day and there Arthur was, as crystal-clear in his head as one of his life-models at school. And while Arthur may be perfect for Eames, he isn’t perfect by any artistic standard. He’s not one of the marvels of symmetry dreamt up by his classmates during their assignments to create Roman deities. Eames had spent weeks convinced that Arthur was someone he’d met, some repressed childhood crush or fleeting encounter in a train station. He’d wracked his brain and finally accepted that Arthur couldn’t be real, because it would be too cruel for him to fall in love with someone just to forget where he’d come from.

Eames’s apartment is soaked in the ochre of a September sunset when he gets home. Arthur looks beautiful in this light, when the warmth teases out the richness of his dark features. Eames stacks his latest assignments on his desk—they can wait for tomorrow—and fixes himself a drink.

There’s blessed silence from downstairs. Yusuf has most likely vacated to Café Reggio for dinner or band practice somewhere else. Eames picks one of his new records from the stack— _ Blossom Dearie _ —and sets it to play on his weathered old RCA Victor. He grabs a sketchbook, settles onto his sofa and kicks his bare feet up onto the coffee table as the opening bars trill out. Ruthie is right, of course. It’s absolutely charming. He smiles at the empty armchair across from him, the one he thinks of as Arthur’s chair. His hand flies as he sketches out the familiar scene of Arthur, just back from work, undone and easy in the way he only is at home—his tie loosened around his neck, his shirt tails free, his suspenders hanging loose at his slim hips. He leans back, one bare foot tucked underneath him as he stares at Eames, quiet and contemplative, tired from a day at his firm but happy to see Eames sitting across from him.

A new song starts, bubbly and cheerful, and half of it is in French. Arthur speaks perfect American schoolboy French, a thousand times better than Eames’s bastard appropriation of an accent, and Eames can see him, grinning to his dimples and pulling Eames to his feet. “ _ Comment allez-vous?” _ he sings along, sliding into Eames’s arms as he laughs and answers back “ _ oui oui, petit chou _ ,” into the soft fold of Arthur’s ear. That’s how Eames finds himself dancing around his studio with a half-empty cocktail glass and a smile on his face.

“You must be hungry,” Arthur says (or would say) when the song ends. Eames could do with a bite, and the Chop Suey congealing in his icebox isn’t exactly enticing, and he’s craving some of that lemon soup Ariadne’s grandmother makes. Eames tucks his newest sketch book under his arm and heads to The Bell.

The Bell is  _ technically  _ called Café Bella, just like it’s  _ technically  _ owned by Ariadne’s parents. They’d embraced the immigrant dream and moved to a nice neighborhood in Queens five years ago, abandoning their café and their hopes of marrying Ariadne off to a nice boy from the neighborhood. Now Ariadne lives with her grandmother above the shop and can spend her days doing what she likes best–-reading musty philosophy books and booking any cute girl who wants to strum folk music on the tiny stage. Tonight‘s girl is barefoot, with a sheet of blonde hair that obscures half her face as she plays. The tinkle of the ancient bell above the door blends in like a soft harmony as Eames enters.

Eames is enough of a regular to have his own table, although he doesn’t resent it when new people occupy it. He can’t begrudge Ariadne the business. Still, he’s happy to see his little table in the corner empty and waiting for him.

“Isn’t she lovely?” Ariadne sets two coffees down and sinks into the seat opposite him. She’s as tomboyish as ever, in a plain black undershirt and a pair of buttoned-up dungarees.

“She has a certain dryadic quality,” Eames says generously. Waifish blondes hold little appeal for him, but he can sympathize with Ariadne’s wistful sigh. “What does her boyfriend do?”

“He’s a  _ poet,” _ she spits, like it’s a different kind of four-letter word entirely. Eames sips his coffee. Delicious, as always. Ariadne’s cooking is all Greek from her mother's side, but she gets her gift for espresso from her Italian father.

“I’m sure he was born that way, love, you can’t hold it against him.“

Ariadne sighs again as her nymphet strums out the last chords of her set. They both applaud politely.

“You hungry? Yaya made some avgolemono, seemed to think you’d want it. I told her it’s still too warm for soup, but you know how she is.”

“Are all the women in your family magic, Ariadne? That’s  _ exactly  _ what I’d like.”

Ariadne gives him a secretive smile. “We’re all powerful witches, couldn’t you tell?”

Eames glances toward the stage, where nymphet is packing up her guitar while a bored, emaciated man slouches next to her. “Then perhaps you still have a chance of enchanting your little songstress.“

Ariadne snorts ruefully, and grabs his sketchbook. “And how is Mr. Darling this evening?”

“ _ Touché _ .” Eames of all people shouldn’t tease her for hopeless crushes. “He’d love some soup.”

Ariadne smiles and takes their empty coffee cups back to her little empire behind the counter.

Eames had been so startled the first time she’d leaned over his shoulder and asked, “What’s your boyfriend's name?” that he’d blurted out “Arthur Darling,” before he could think better of it. Ariadne is a sharp little thing.

“Oh, from the Connecticut Darlings?” she’d said, winking at his studies of Arthur leaning against the rail of a yacht, in a fetching cable jumper meant to advertise  _ “Wool, the Sporting Man’s Choice.” _

“Boston,” was Eames's long-suffering reply. She’s made a point of asking after Arthur ever since, indulging Eames and his little stories. She's sharp, but she’s kind.

“Are you coming to the Center later?”

She sets down his soup and a huge hunk of bread, to the delight of Eames’s grumbling stomach.

“I suppose,” Eames sighs, taking his spoon into the steaming bowl. “I should be a good neighbor and support Ernie.”

“Great, you’re my date.” She frowns at the stage, where her barefoot crooner is sitting on the dread poet’s lap. “Not like I have any other prospects.”

“Her loss,” Eames says softly.

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “Eat your soup while it’s hot.”

Eames does just that. Yaya’s soup is rich and tart with lemon juice, full of rice and tender chicken. Eames is uncommonly fond of it.

He flips his sketchbook open to a half-finished image of Arthur’s hands, hard at work over a blueprint for a trim little townhouse. One of them is splayed flat to hold his ruler in place, while the other is curled around his pencil, moments away from marking a clean stroke over a window lintel.

With his belly full of soup and the background noise of The Bell slipping from his consciousness, Eames bites his lip and begins to articulate the delicate machinery of Arthur’s hands. The tendons and muscles, the furrowed channels of his knuckles, the network of veins that rise in soft slopes beneath his skin—Eames can see them all.

It may be a sad indictment of his mental state, but with each picture, each tiny detail that he brings to life with pencil and paper, Arthur becomes more real. It’s not just the physical details. It’s the tiny stories that are peppered all over Arthur’s body.The tiny scar on his ring finger from a broken glass, the minute imperfection of his left thumb from an old sprain playing baseball, the thin scar on his stomach that Arthur’s terribly bashful about, where he says it hasn’t felt quite right since his appendix had burst when he was sixteen, how he squirms when Eames kisses him there.

He jolts as Ariadne taps him on the shoulder. Eames grimaces at the old ache in his shoulders as he looks up.  _ How long has he been drawing? _ He’s the only patron left, and judging by the neat stack of chairs in the corner, Ariadne has almost finished her sweeping up without Eames even noticing. He’s always gotten lost in his work, but it’s been getting more intense every time he draws Arthur lately.

“Think you’re going to start gathering dust,” Ariadne jokes, sweeping around his feet as Eames gathers his things. “You owe me fifteen cents for the soup.”

Eames gives her a dollar. The generous tip seems like fair rent for his table.

“Do I look like something men will try to pick up?” Ariadne frowns as she whips her apron off.

“Straight men will try to pick up a lamp if it has a waist, dear, you know that.”

Ariadne makes a disgusted noise and rolls the sleeves of her T-shirt up. It does little to disguise her natural beauty, a thing she shouldn’t have to hide but seems to resent nonetheless. He’s hardly an Adonis, but Eames has had to politely turn down enough young ladies to sympathize with her discomfort. It doesn’t help that she has the wide-eyed look favored for princesses and damsels in distress. He can’t imagine anything less useful to a lesbian than a Prince Charming, none of whom seem to have gotten the memo that Eames’s castle gates remain wide open.

“Good thing I’ll have you to deter them.”

“Are you saying I’m good at deterring handsome men?”

“Only the wrong kind.”

The Center is a few blocks over on MacDougal. There’s a crowd milling on the curb outside, the usual mix of unkempt artists and pretty folk singers, a flock of jazz musicians clustered around a joint, some of the more colorful peacocks that Eames has seen around at the gay bars. A clutch of tourists cowers at the periphery, shifting in shoes too new to belong below 14th Street.

“I wonder if Jack Kerouac will be here tonight,” one of them titters, and Eames rolls his eyes. He’s hardly possessed of the rabid territorialism of a native son like Ariadne, but he’s had enough near-brushes with drunken rich boys to feel no warmth toward the gawker set.

Eames follows Ariadne down the crooked steps, leaving the cool air of the city night behind them as they descend into the dimly-lit bowels of the club. The air is so thick with cigarette smoke Eames doesn’t bother to light his own, not that he’s much inclined to. Arthur’s the smoker.

“Oh, we can sit with Olive,” Ariadne waves and steers them over to a table with some empty seats and Eames’s downstairs neighbor.

Olive greets him with a curt nod over her thick eyeglasses. If Ariadne is casual, Olive is positively proletariat in her khaki shirt and work pants. Olive’s a brilliant writer, and she is relentlessly optimistic that Eames will join The Cause. It’s not that he has a problem with communists. They’re just so  _ drab _ .

“Eames, this is Ivan, I’ve been wanting to introduce you.” She pronounces it  _ ‘ee-VONN,’ _ très Continental. Eames sighs.

“Pleasure,” says Ivan, extending his hand across the table. Eames knows a fellow Alexandrian when he sees one. He shakes Ivan’s hand, ostentatiously limp in the wrist as it is, and nods politely. It’s not fair to Ivan to compare him to the Aristotelian figment of Eames’s imagination. All men seem lacking next to Arthur, even Ivan with his strong jaw and wide, pale eyes. He’s a bit fair for Eames’s taste, but he’s stylish and slender and he knocks his foot against Eames’s ankle as he leans back and sips his drink.

“Ivan’s in the Mattachine Society.”

It’s always politics with Olive. She’s been bugging him to join for months. Naturally, Eames is delighted that an organization for homosexual rights exists, but that doesn’t mean he wants to serve as Treasurer. Is it so terrible that Eames just wants to live his life without performing it for the betterment of his comrades in sodomy? No one wants to be illegal, but the thought of meetings and pamphlets and protests is  _ exhausting _ . Eames has naked men to draw.

“I’m in the American Society of Commercial Illustrators,” Eames offers, as Olive rolls her eyes and Ivan’s demeanor cools a fraction.  _ What? He is, he pays dues and everything _ . Ariadne keeps mum next to him. She’s yet to join Olive’s lesbian counterpart to the Mattachine, the charmingly–named Daughters of Bilitis. They both sigh with relief as the avant-garde poetry begins.

Eames has seen stranger things than Ernie live-painting Mark’s jittery, acrobatic reading. Ernie renders the beat and drag of the poet's words into a frantic Morse code of paint strokes and splatters. Ernie makes angry, inscrutable, abstract art, blocky, figurative stuff that fills Eames with melancholy and a somber sense of the dread and pride and unspeakable tension of being a Black man in America. It’s brilliant stuff.

Eames applauds when they finish and accepts Ariadne’s offer of a refill. Olive and Ariadne fall into their usual sexually-charged debates about workers rights and the übermensch or some such; he can only pay attention for so long. Yusuf visits them, charged with the molasses animation of the deeply stoned as he exhorts them to come to his band’s 3:00 AM set at the Vanguard. Eames would rather stick his little finger into his pencil sharpener, but he smiles politely and promises they’ll do their best. Eames is already itching to get home to Arthur.

“So, you’re Olive’s neighbor?”

Ivan is handsome. He’s not perfect, but he’s got lovely forearms that drape over his lap like a bored greyhound, and long legs that could wrap around Eames’s waist twice.

“It’s a long trip home to Sutton Place for me,” Ivan says, taking Eames’s measure so thoroughly Eames has to applaud him for sheer nerve.  _ That Mattachine mettle _ . Eames could take this man home, feel the warmth of flesh and blood against him, learn the scent of his neck and the give of his lips. Eames wouldn’t be doing anything wrong.

Ivan slides one hand onto Eames’s knee. “I wouldn’t mind a little company uptown.” 

Arthur can be downright vulgar when he’s in the mood, but he’d never flirt this artlessly. Eames sighs.

“Shame, then, I’m booked for the night, ducky.” Eames smiles tightly. “I can help you get a cab?”

“Guess I’ll have to try my luck at Julius.” Ivan shrugs as Eames wishes him well and takes his departure as an excuse to leave. 

It’s mad, Eames knows it is, but there are nights when he pauses on his threshold, key in the lock, his hand on the doorknob; nights like this where he’s a little punchy, when Eames would swear on his life that Arthur is inside waiting for him. He closes his eyes, listens for the faint hint of movement behind the door, the shuffle of Arthur’s bare feet, the tinkle of a record he’s put on. Eames breathes in this heady bouquet of seconds, this precious delirium that rises in his chest as he throws the lock and opens the door and finds—nothing. Darkness. Silhouettes from the street lights and everything exactly as he left it.

Eames dumps his keys back into the chipped ceramic dish on his counter and sighs. It’s always the same. Arthur is a flame that won’t be snuffed out, no matter how many times he opens the door to the same empty bed and cold kettle.

Sometimes, it’s like he’s looking at two worlds—the empty gray of his studio through one eye, and the vibrant technicolor of his life with Arthur through the other. It’s all so real: the lingering smell of the cigarettes Arthur sneaks out the window when he’s not home, the  _ tick-tick-tick _ of Arthur’s nervous fidgeting with his pen as he sits curled up with his slim notebook, the rush of warmth as Arthur unfurls himself to welcome Eames home with one of his deceptively strong embraces, the whisper of his breath against Eames’s ear, “I missed you,” his hands roving under Eames’s shirt. Arthur gets handsy when Eames stays out late, not jealous as much as inspired to remind him why he always comes home.

Eames’s fingers curl at his side, and he’s sprawled out on his couch with a sketchpad balanced on his leg before he knows it. These are the images of Arthur he will never share with another soul—Arthur, stripped down to nothing but his briefs, sliding down between Eames’s spread legs, impish and hungry and prideful, because he knows how hard it gets Eames when he’s possessive like this; Arthur’s lips stretched taut around the fat head of Eames’s cock, eyes shut in blissful concentration and his delicate fingers wrapped around the shaft; Arthur, done with teasing now, spread out on their bed, those fingers put to good use as he works himself open for Eames; Arthur’s face, dewy with sweat and framed by the bony flex of his knees, his brow furrowed in the luscious, maniacal throes of his climax; Arthur, lips parted in unconscious sleep, hair bristling like a porcupine against one of their pillows, an unkempt beauty only Eames gets to see.

Eames lets his paper slide onto the couch cushions. He’s soaked a saucer into the front of his pants, and he’s so hard, he throbs as he takes himself in hand. Maybe it’s his latest work for Twinkle Toes, but it’s the delicate curl of Arthur’s toes that he sees when he comes. Eames sits there panting, soaking a mess into his undershirt-–he’ll be sure to rinse that one before he brings it to the laundry, although the stalwart Pang has surely seen worse. He keeps his eyes closed, willing himself a few more blissful, deluded seconds where he can pretend he’ll find Arthur waiting as he reaches out his hand. All he finds is empty air. Eames digs his fingers into the back of his couch. 

“I miss you, too, Arthur.”

~

Eames is up and sketching early the next morning, thanks in part to one of Yusuf’s darlings caterwauling beneath him. There’s only one creature Eames wants yowling and hissing in his home, and he doesn’t piss in a box of newspaper.

With some coffee in hand—hot, at least, although it would still incite Ariadne’s scorn—Eames dashes off a few of his commissions. Some giggling girls tickling one another’s feet, a strapping lad mere seconds from losing his towel in a generic collegial locker room, and the curious potbellied, middle-aged baby in his footed onesie. Eames gives him a matching bonnet and muses on the claw-marks one’s parents can leave on the psyche.

Eames gives himself a break after a few panels of Mrs. Clarkson’s newest installment in the disciplinary adventures of Mme. Larkspur’s Academy for Young Ladies. The level of detail Mrs. Clarkson demands is grueling, and too much of it exhausts even Eames’s capability for mimetic empathy. Eames can only spend so long being other people before he needs to take some time to be himself.

Lunch at The Bell is a quiet affair. It's far too early for most of the beat crowd, so Eames mingles with the few stray writers and bookish types who get out of bed before teatime. A haggard-looking man in corduroy frowns as he scribbles in a notebook, two women sip their espressos as they read matching editions  _ The Scapegoat, _ and a man Eames has never seen before seems to enjoy staring at the other patrons more than his battered edition of  _ Ivanhoe _ . Ariadne blithely ignores them all, her nose buried in a dog-eared copy of Hannah Arendt.

“A little late afternoon reading?” Eames leans over the counter.  _ The Origins of Totalitarianism _ sounds very important, and very much like something he'd rather not contemplate over his first meal. He meets her glare with a sunny grin. “Please tell me Yaya made some spinach pie.”

She closes her book and sighs indulgently. "It's still warm."

Eames settles in at his table, always empty at this hour, and devours his generous slab of spinach and pastry before opening his sketchbook to a new page.

Arthur would be at work now. Eames sips his coffee and wonders if Arthur is doing the same. Soon he's engrossed in a study of Arthur, staring out the paneled window of his Midtown office, hands clutched around a company mug, contemplative as he watches the ant-sized denizens of his city move through their day. No less beguiling than the Arthur of last night, this Arthur is ready for public view. This Arthur answers to  _ Mr. Darling _ , his name all the more ironic for the sharpness of his features and the lean prowess of his body. This Arthur is confident, at ease with his power, with a sliver of danger common to all men who know their worth. This Arthur broke a schoolmate's nose for calling him a fairy, and he’d do it again if he had to.

"Is he your lover?"

All the hackles on Eames’s neck rise. He turns, mouth open to say something trite, just to close it again as a woman Eames can only describe as "stunning" settles in across from him.

"I had a lover, in Paris,” she says, pausing to slip a cigarette between her lips and light it. “Used to draw me on her balcony, smoking, just like this.” She turns and blows a column of smoke towards the ceiling, and anyone would want to sketch her like this, with that elegant neck turning upwards and those eyes. “Without a stitch on.”

Eames makes a serious face. “I do hope you weren't cold.”

“Her husband painted me, later, as a series of abstract shapes.” She takes another drag off her cigarette and shrugs. "I never knew I was made of so many circles.”

"Eames," he says, offering her a hand and getting a firm grip in return.

“I'm Mal." She leans back in her chair, studying him. "You really must tell me who that is, he's quite striking."

Arthur does look striking. It's in the eyes, that dark intelligence, always observing and calculating. It leaves him looking too wary and troubled at times. It takes coaxing to get Arthur's guard down, which makes him that much more beguiling when he's open and warm and safe in Eames’s arms.

"He's a dream, isn't he? Too bad he only exists in here.” Eames smiles, not quite to his eyes, and taps his temple.

"As I get older, Eames, I wonder if most men aren't better in our imaginations, no?"

“Sadly, my imagination can't take me to bed."

Mal laughs, uproariously, her head flung back. Ariadne looks up from her book, and the stranger across the room stares at Mal like he's willing her to combust.

"You've got me there,  _ Monsieur Eames _ .”

Ariadne slides a free chair next to their table, turning it backwards so she can sit astride the straight back.

"Eames, I see you've met Mal."

Mal nods. "Eames was about to show me his sketchbook."

"I was?”

“I see you've met Mr. Darling as well.” Ariadne arches an eyebrow at Eames’s book.

"He's lovely,” Mal hums. She has his sketchbook in her hands before Eames can protest. She flips through each page, her eyebrows moving eloquently and her lips pursed in amusement. At least there's nothing risqué in this one, just Arthur, fully clothed, doing the everyday things that devastate Eames with their ephemeral familiarity.

"How do you two...?" Eames trails off, tilting his chin at Ariadne when Mal refuses to look up from a particularly elegant Arthur swinging a golf club.

"We're, uh, cousins."

Eames frowns at that pause. It's not like Ariadne needs to be secretive about a lover, if that's what Mal is. Eames is equally terrified and thrilled for her if they're sleeping together.

"Ariadne’s always been like a daughter to me," Mal says, snapping the book shut and passing it back to Eames. She and Ariadne share a curious look, fond and annoyed all at once, and Eames chalks it up to another Sapphic mystery he’ll never unravel.

"Eames is going to be my date to the Vanguard later."

"Am I? Didn’t realize I was in such high demand."

"You wouldn't make a poor girl go off to a jazz club all by herself, would you?" Mal, who looks like she could pick her teeth with the bones of any man who crosses her, bats her eyelashes at him and demurely crosses her hands in her lap. Eames is unspeakably charmed by her. So is half the café, if the open stares of the  _ Scapegoat _ ladies are any indication. Even writer-guy has abandoned his militant marginalia to gawk at her, and the disgruntled reader across from them is gripping his book so tightly his knuckles have gone white.

"Be careful," Ariadne frowns, giving Mal another inscrutable look. "There's all sorts out on the streets lately." 

“Psh," Mal waves her hand, dismissive. "Eames will keep me safe, won't you?” She leans in, conspiratorial, before she grabs his forearm assessingly. "You're a strong one. I bet your Mr. Darling likes all these muscles, no?”

Eames’s cheeks heat up. It's not as if Mal could know, but he always imagines that Arthur appreciates the contrast in their bodies, the way Eames’s massive shoulders eclipse his slender frame when they're together. Eames has never particularly liked that he's built more like a farmhand than Fred Astaire or one of the other dapper stars he'd idolized as a little boy. Ariadne saves him.

"Please don't let her bully you."

"Nonsense, I'd love to. Pick you up here at ten?” Eames gathers his things and kisses Mal’s hand. "You can tell me more about Paris."

Yaya's outside, baking in the sun in her black skirt and kerchief. "Looking lovely today, Yaya!" Eames hollers as he passes by. She nods and makes some passing gesture with three of her fingers. If it's a blessing, a curse, or a vulgar gesture is for only Yaya to know.

Well-fed as he is, Eames has no trouble finishing Mrs. Clarkson’s story panels. Shades of Mal start to slip into the harsh mouth and heaving bosom of one of the Head Girls, a fact that would no doubt delight her. He finishes with the last panel: shy, buxom Rose, stripped to her underthings and perched over the lap of her headmistress, blushing from both ends as she's remonstrated with a period-accurate and meticulously detailed hairbrush.

Eames shifts in his seat. He's not much for the discipline, but the idea of Arthur spanking him isn't entirely horrible. This happens sometimes. As though the energy he pours into the page snaps back to him, leaving him a little riled.

He indulges himself with thoughts of Arthur in one of his trim suits, clucking his tongue at Eames’s misbehavior. It's out of his system by the time he's done with his bath, and his next thoughts of Arthur are of his approving nod as Eames picks a wide-collared shirt and his exasperated face when he leaves it open to the neck.

"It's a jazz club, it's always bloody stifling in there." Eames catches himself. He really needs to stop doing that.

~

Mal is devastatingly hip in head-to-toe black, with cropped trousers and a knit top that leaves none of her considerable assets to the imagination. She leans against the window of The Bell, smoking with the distracted elegance Eames has seen a hundred bright-eyed beatnik girls fail to master.

"Care for a smoke?" Mal taps a Gauloises out of her softpack and offers it to Eames.

"It would be rude to decline." Eames tilts his head as she flicks her lighter, growling  _ "merde" _ under her breath several times as the spark refuses to catch. Mal clucks her tongue and mutters something Eames doesn't understand (Greek? Turkish?) and finally, it erupts into a little flame. Mal tucks her pocketbook against her side and takes Eames’s arm.

“Come on, I don't want to lose our table.”

They weave through the colorful crowds as they make their way the half-dozen blocks to the Vanguard. This is why he loves it here—the frantic kaleidoscope of people crashing together, so utterly different from the staid English countryside that had produced him. They pass friends and couples of every make and model, street buskers and earnest pamphleteers urging them to Save the Village from Robert Moses, a dignified drag queen who draws to her full height to flip off a taxi driver who dared to think the street crossing signs applied to her. Mal steers him through it all, making amiable conversation about the Jazz scene in Paris and the new music coming out of Brazil, has he heard any of it? And oh, he really should see Rio, there are some lovely boys there for his sketchbook, and it aches a little tune out of Eames’s heart as Mal rattles off all the cities and far-flung places she’s visited. 

Eames would take Arthur to all of them. He could show Arthur the world, learn to say “I love you” in a hundred languages, wake up to a different sunrise spilling over Arthur’s face every day. It’s hard to be too melancholy, though, not when Mal is extolling the amorous virtues of a particular cellist she knows in Tunisia with no care for who’s listening, and before Eames knows it they’re perched on a little table within spitting distance of the stage as Mal orders them both beer.

Eames has seen Sonny Rollins before, two years back at Birdland with Yusuf. He has some of his records, but nothing can reproduce the melancholy magic of his alto sax live and in the flesh. It's a rich sadness he can share with the room, where everyone is joined in this human experience of longing and loneliness. Even if Eames yearns for a man who will never be real, surely his pain isn't that different from whatever sends a solitary, elegant tear sliding down Mal’s cheek. The set ends and for one moment, everyone is too stunned to respond. Mal breaks the silence with a fervent burst of applause and the audience jolts to life around her, brimming with enough enthusiasm to earn them an encore of "Solitude."

They stay for the second act and a third beer, and they're both pleasantly buzzed by the time they emerge into the clear night air.

"I'm starving," Mal laments as they weave through the crowds on Seventh Avenue.

"I know just the place, all-night delicatessen over by Minetta. Divine roast beef sandwiches."

Eames loves a late night snack. He's still not sure how Arthur feels about them. He can be a picky eater, while Eames will wolf down absolutely anything put before him.

Fitzie's has a line despite the late hour, but Eames is friendly with the chap behind the counter. Eames suspects they’re birds of a feather, though he's never responded to the fellow's friendly overtures. Still, he flags Eames to the counter and takes his and Mal’s orders while Eames grins smugly at a cluster of affronted university students. “Thank you, Henry.”

"I'm going to have a smoke while we wait," Mal says, squeezing his arm. "I want to be under the stars."

Half the heads in the place turn to follow her as she leaves. Eames watches Henry as he builds their sandwiches. He's cut well enough to Eames’s type, dark and lean with a wicked grin and calculating intelligence behind his eyes. This is a man Eames could take home, maybe even have a relationship with. He’d be fat and happy on leftover potato salad and Kaiser rolls. He could be comfortable with this man, fall asleep next to his warm body. Eames blows a breath out between his lips.

Arthur may be nothing but black coffee and empty air, but he's still all Eames wants.

"I'm going to need a drink after this crowd," Henry jokes as he hands Eames his neatly-wrapped sandwiches.  _ It would be so easy. _

"It's off to bed for me," Eames says instead, smiling amiably as Henry gallantly recovers.

"Good thing I put enough meat on there to put a bear to sleep," he says, regaining his handsome smile before Eames turns to leave.

Eames pauses outside, scanning the milling crowd of students and scowling artist-types before he catches sight of Mal across the street. She's gone off the main street, down by the little alley across from the Minetta Theater. Eames shakes his head in sympathy as she fusses with her temperamental lighter, stamping one foot with frustration. It's the kind of thing that would make Arthur petulant, too.

Eames is about to call her name when... well. Eames has had a few drinks, to be sure. Maybe he lost count of how many beers Mal gave him, or maybe his eyes are finally going after years of squinting over his sketchbook. For a brief moment, Eames would swear that a burst of flame erupts from Mal’s fingertip, which is  _ mad _ , but it's only half as mad as what happens next.

These things are supposed to happen in slow motion, as Eames has always understood it. And yet, before he can even blink, Mal lights her cigarette, exhales up to the night sky, and makes a muffled sound of shock as a man grabs her from behind and claps a hand over her mouth. It's all just a flash –  _ fire, smoke, man, darkness _ . Eames blinks, frozen as he clutches his roast beef and thinks,  _ that was the angry little man from The Bell _ . It could be a full hour that he stands there, thunderstruck, but it mustn't be because the next thing he knows his soles are slapping against the pavement and he's rounding into a darkened courtyard. He doesn't think, doesn't have time to, just barrels into the both of them, throwing a punch at what might be a kidney, just as the man snarls, "fucking witch."

And that's not the slur Eames was expecting, but he can't really reflect on that when his fist collides with the man's body, a solid blow that gets him grunting in pain and turning toward Eames. Eames brings his hands up by his face, a lingering instinct from his father's insistence that boxing lessons would flatten the nancy out of him, which of course they hadn't, but Eames is ready to parry a blow. Mal is cursing in too many languages for Eames to keep track of, and some sluggish part of his brain helpfully points out that he’s still clenching his bag of sandwiches in his left fist, and why did he call Mal a  _ witch _ , what a strange thing to say, and then something glints in the man's hand and suddenly Eames’s entire body is on fire.

This isn't pain the way Eames has ever known it. He's gotten into his fair share of scrapes, as his chipped front teeth can attest, and he still has a scar on his elbow from when he upended the kettle at his Gran’s. This isn't pain. Radiating out from his shoulder, it's as though his blood has turned to acid, seething and hissing as it courses through him. He can't feel his fall, just knows that his face is suddenly much closer to the pavement. His head is as thick as treacle. Mal’s voice is an angry swarm of bees, repeating a guttural chant over and over until it's all Eames can hear. The air trembles around him, crackling and heavy against his skin, and Mal’s doesn't sound like any human voice Eames has ever heard as she growls, "Tell your friends we are not afraid," and then someone is screaming, and there's a burst of light so bright Eames has to close his eyes and then it's... snowing? He can't move his hand to brush it away, but it's not white, it's black.  _ Ash _ . Eames is covered in ashes.

He tries to say Mal's name but it can't escape his throat. Eames’s belly roils and it hurts just to move his eyeballs, and all he can think is,  _ I should have drawn Arthur one last time. _

"Eames!" and then Mal is crouched in front of him, her hands cool on his forehead, blessed relief as some of the pain recedes from his screaming head. He blinks at her, incredulous, marveling that he’d failed to notice how absolutely beautiful she is. Mal is radiant, with her round cheeks and her kind eyes and her hand cupped over Eames’s brow. Blackness inches in around Eames’s vision, and for one moment he could swear it's his mum. He almost says her name, but then she's gone, eclipsed in the soft light of Mal’s face, but it's not her, either, it's... it's the face of every mother Eames has ever seen, the care and comfort of every person who's ever held a scared child or tended a sick baby, the strength and resilience and fierce love that makes a mother animal a far greater danger than any sire. Eames is a little boy again, sniveling over a scraped knee and nosing into the powder-soft comfort of his mum's curls.

"Stay with me, Eames, they're coming, they're almost here."

Eames has hit his head, or been drugged, or both, because the next time he opens his eyes Ariadne is frowning at him, but it can't be Ariadne, she's never this lovely, as young as a freshly bloomed flower, with a maiden's blush and her doe-eyes trembling with worry.

"We have to get him inside,” croaks a voice behind her, and Eames snorts in paralyzed shock as Yaya strokes a wizened hand through his hair. Does Yaya speak English? Is Yaya always this... it's not the beauty of Ariadne or Mal, it's something more rooted in the Earth, the weathered majesty of a gnarled old oak that will only know Eames’s lifetime as a fleeting season. Three faces peer down at him, luminous, timeless, three sets of hands laid upon him. Then Arthur calls his name and everything goes black.

~

_ "I told you not to use your powers in public." _

Eames can't see anything.

_ “I wanted a fucking cigarette, Ariadne.” _

He tries to blink, but everything is covered in a layer of Vaseline and it's all too heavy to move.

_ "He's lucky the Aconite didn't get to his heart.” _

There are hands on his head, and something cool wrapped around his hands and feet.

_ "I can't believe a fucking witch hunter got the drop on you, Mal.” _

_ "I was distracted." _

_ "You were careless." _

_ "I have a lot on my mind." _

_ "You know the last time I was Mother, we never had problems like—” _

_ "The last time you were Mother, there wasn't  _ _ electricity _ _ —” _

_ “Stop it, both of you." _ Yaya silences them.  _ "Who knows what would have happened if Eames hadn't been there." _

Eames stirs at his name, managing to move one arm before collapsing back into the bedding.  _ Whose bed is this? Where is he?  _

_ "Oh, Eames."  _ He can just make out Ariadne’s face, peering down at him. Why does everything smell like fields of flowers and summer sunshine?

“Don't worry. This isn't where your story ends.”

She closes her hand over his heart, and everything blooms.

~

_ “You send me…” _

“I need the bottle opener!"

The grass smells so good here. Eames fishes into the picnic hamper at his side and rummages past the sandwiches and fruit salad Arthur had packed for them.

"There's a tax," Eames says, offering Arthur the opener just to snatch it back. Eyes narrowed, Arthur rolls onto his hands and knees and stalks over to Eames, rumpling the checkered blanket he’d laid out for them.

"This is usury." Arthur snatches the opener, but he still leans in and gives Eames a kiss. They're alone here, at the edge of a little meadow where no one can sneak up on them. Arthur's careful, but Eames loves him best when he's bold like this, when he kisses Eames under the open sky and takes his hand for all to see.

_ “Darling, you send me…” _

Arthur settles on his back, one arm propped under his head as he sips his Schlitz. His contented sigh mingles with birdsong and the music filtering in through the trees, that Sam Cooke song Arthur loves. Where is that coming from? There aren't any radios out here.

"Hey, want to split the turkey?"

The breeze brushes past Eames’s face and he blinks. "I thought I got roast beef."

"No." Arthur looks at him, tilting his head. "You got me tuna salad and you got turkey for yourself, but I'm going to eat half of your sandwich because I always like your food better."

"Of course.” Eames shakes his head. It must be all the fresh air making him so muzzy. He finds the turkey sandwich and splits it in half along the neat line cut into the deli paper. Arthur always steals his food.

"Here you go, love."

Arthur smiles and everything makes sense again, of course, he's on a picnic with Arthur and there's music and flowers and sunshine everywhere.

_ “I know, you send me…” _

On his side, Eames sits up on one elbow and watches Arthur eat. There's nothing special about it, but that's the wonder of it, that Eames gets to watch Arthur do these everyday things, things he's only imagined. No, not imagined. He's watched Arthur eat and lay in the sun and do all of the glorious, mundane things of their life together countless times.  _ Hasn't he? _

"Arthur, I..." Eames squints. The sun really is bright today. He reaches out and finds Arthur's chest, warm and strong as he presses over his heart. Arthur is solid and real and why does that make Eames’s hands shake?

"I love this song." Arthur's hand slots over his, lacing their fingers together. He smiles, and the dimples Eames has shaded a thousand times burst to life. "And I love you, Eames."

Eames tries to answer  _ I love you, Arthur Darling, I love you more than I've ever loved anything _ , but everything is too bright and green and raw inside him. Arthur’s smile splits into a thousand points of light as Eames’s hands clutch at empty air.

~

_ "He doesn't know?" _

Eames’s stomach hurts. He curls in on himself, clutching at his belly. 

_ “I don't think so.” _

_ “They don't raise boys right these days.” _

_ "They've never raised boys right, Yaya.” _

_ "I thought we were onto something in Yaxchilan." _

His mouth tastes terrible. His lips are cracked and dry when he licks at them.

"Oh, he's awake!"

There are flashes of red and pink behind his eyelids, and then Mal is there, wreathed in the soft glow of a room Eames doesn't recognize. Her hand slides behind his head and he's flooded with that same maternal feeling, hot cocoa and warm biscuits and a cool hand on his fevered head.

"Did you know that you are magical,  _ Monsieur Eames _ ?" She presses a glass of water to his lips, cool and fresh on his parched tongue. "That's why this poison has made you so sick."

Eames splutters,  _ poison _ , is that what she said? Has Eames died and turned into Snow White?

"Shush, don't worry,  _ mon coeur _ . My sisters and I will fix everything.”  _ Her sisters?  _ Eames peers past her, blinking in surprise at Ariadne and Yaya crowded at the edge of the bed.

"I told you he didn't know," Ariadne says, her arms crossed over her chest. 

“Well, he deserves to," whispers Yaya, her jowls trembling as she nods decisively. “I've always said so."

"We don't meddle, Yaya," Mal says over her shoulder.

"Until they meddle with us.” She winks at Eames and he has so many questions, but Mal’s hands on his head are so soothing. He tries to speak but it's impossible, not when a wave of vertigo washes over him and everything smells of roses.

~

"Do you want me to kiss it?"

There are boxes everywhere. Eames slumps on his impromptu seat, another god-forsaken box that either contains the collected works of Keats or some pots and pans, Eames had stopped labeling them after the first dozen, and stares up at Arthur glumly.

"That's what my mum used to do."

"Mine, too." Arthur finishes wrapping the plaster around Eames’s finger, as deft and delicate as always. Unlike Eames, who got too careless with a box cutter.

He just wants it all done. He's wanted this for so long, a home with Arthur, this bright, airy place where he can always look up and see Arthur smiling at him, or see the secretly adorable face he makes when he's in a sour mood and cussing at the coffee pot. 

"You'd better, then, just to be safe.”

Arthur nods, solemn, and brings Eames’s wounded finger to his lips. It's a delicate kiss, a butterfly's wings, the flutter of an eyelash. Eames tightens his grip on Arthur's hand, suddenly certain that Arthur will fly away if Eames lets him go. "Kiss me again."

He crushes Arthur against him, craving every inch of contact he can get.

"I can't believe this is real," he breathes in Arthur's hair, the expensive pomade he uses, his aftershave. Eames stares past Arthur’s shoulder, at the exuberant mess of his own boxes and the orderly pile of Arthur's belongings in one corner. Eames loves this flat, loved it the moment he and Arthur had looked at it. They're going to put their desks together under those huge skylights, facing one another over the peaked surface.

"Oh, you'll believe it when I burn dinner, trust me."

"No, I..." Eames can't let go of Arthur, not that he seems to mind. He traces small circles over Eames’s back, soothing and steady as Eames stares at the brick wall behind him. Hadn't he had one of Ernie’s paintings there? Eames blinks. And weren't the bookshelves along the other wall?

"This isn't real, Arthur."

It's sunset. Light floods in through the windows, breaking pink and gold on the hardwood floor. Eames has stood in this light before, closed his eyes against the fleeting warmth of the day and wished for all of this.

"Don't I feel real to you?" Arthur kisses him, and everything melts into honey.

~

_ "How can you eat right now, Mal?" _

_ “No sense in wasting a sandwich.” _

He's in a forest. Everything smells like pine and dried leaves. There's water on his lips, cool and sweet.

"Drink up, little witch boy." Yaya’s grizzled old face frowns down at him, her bony hand clasped behind his neck.

"What's, where am I..."

"Shush." Yaya shakes her head and urges him to drink more.

_ "Do you want the other sandwich, Yaya? I’m always starving when I’m the Crone." _

_ "That’s Eames’s sandwich!" _

_ "I don't think he's going to eat it." _

The mention of eating makes his stomach turn. He shudders as Yaya sets the glass aside.

"You're almost through it."

"What happened?" Eames croaks, trying to rise and sinking back down immediately when the room starts to spin. Yaya spreads her hand and there it is again, that pine-pitch smell that fills his nostrils and roots him into the earth. Eames floats under it like he's encased in glass.

"He saved your life, Mal, at least save him his dinner." Ariadne makes an exasperated gesture Eames associates with demanding customers. 

Mal crosses her arms over her chest. "I think any decent person would have done the same."

"Any decent person would have had a scratch and a memorable bout of fisticuffs—"

"No one says that anymore, Yaya—"

"The only reason he's alive is all this muscle, good thing he's built like an ox or the Aconite would have gone straight to his heart."

Eames’s shoulder smarts as Yaya squeezes it.

"No, we owe him a life debt, no avoiding it.”

"We could just give him a little amnesia, surely—"

"Ariadne, have you been Maiden so long you’ve forgotten the way of things? I will not have a repeat of what happened in Constantinople."

“That was Mal’s fault.”

“It was not! You're the one who stole that goat and—"

"Enough!"

Yaya leans over him, her face hovering above his and blocking the light. She's every witch from his mother's fairy tales, as bent and gnarled as an old tree, and just as powerful. If Ariadne and Mal are wreathed in fields and flowers, Yaya is crowned with death, as inevitable and welcoming as a starless night. Death and birth and life again, an endless cycle that's older than anything Eames has words for.

"Listen to me, Eames." Yaya's voice scratches like an old bough against the windowpane. “There is something in your heart, something that you hold dear above all other things."

Eames is on a picnic blanket, Eames is singing Sam Cooke and holding Arthur against his chest; Eames is dancing around a sea of moving boxes and eating Arthur's charred attempt at Swedish meatballs, Eames is glancing up from his work to find Arthur sitting across from him, bent in concentration over a set of blueprints; Eames is falling asleep in his snug little home with Arthur in his arms and the endless song of the Village filtering in through the open windows.

"Pure of heart," Yaya nods, the moonlit glow around her face spreading out as Mal and Ariadne join her.

_ "Make it so.” _

~

It's just dawn when Eames wakes. The bruised blue of the rousing sky reaches its fingers across the floorboards, threading behind Eames’s bed screen and tugging his eyes open. 

His head swims as he sits up. He doesn't feel any of the nausea of his usual hangover, just a pounding throb in his head. His shoulder aches. Eames lurches upright and sits on the edge of the bed, his feet planted on the floor as he tries to make sense of the mess in his head. He's never had dreams like this before. He reaches back, his hand sliding over the rumpled sheets and stopping when he only finds empty space.

“Bloody hell.” He rubs his eyes and staggers to his feet. Everything is blurry—the threadbare Aubusson rug that Arthur always complains about, the crowded stacks of his bookcases, the gleaming oak of his drafting table. Eames stumbles toward it, shirtless and fevered all over. His skin prickles as he sharpens his pencil. Static electricity ripples over his hands as he pulls out a sheet of paper and tapes it down. Is he still drunk? What did he and Mal get up to last night?

" _ Eames _ .”

He shakes his head. He has to draw Arthur. Eames is used to living at the beck and call of his Muse. He’s had these moments, where Arthur seems so close that Eames could reach out and touch him, where he does something that Eames has never seen him do before, or something he's done countless times that has suddenly crystallized into tangible perfection, that Eames wants to capture before it floats away into the aether. The air crackles around him, standing his hair on end as he slides graphite to paper as delicately as the day’s first kiss. 

This is Arthur as Eames has yearned for him most— not the dashing fellow who peddles cigarettes and shaving cream, not the rakish ingenue who can seduce Eames with one crooked finger, not the brooding designer who turns pictures into solid brick and mortar. This is Arthur at his most human—half-asleep in their bed, his pillow crushed against his face in that funny way that he likes, his eyes heavy, one cheek smushed imperfectly where he's on his side.

_ “Something in your heart." _

Arthur reaches out for him, lazy and sure in the knowledge that Eames will come when he calls, of course he will. Eames can hear the soft rhythm of his breath, the rustle of the sheets as he rolls over. Arthur's used to his odd hours, knows that an empty bed is nothing to worry about, that Eames is just on the other side of the screen.

_ “Dear above all other things.” _

The hair on the back of Eames’s neck is standing up. He’s flush, more the pleasant buzz of a good martini than the throb of a fever. This is a different focus from his usual black-hole fixation on the slant of Arthur's eyebrows, the wayward lock of hair that resists his pomaded restraint. Eames can feel every molecule in the room, moving and vibrating in time with his hand over the paper.

“ _ Eames _ .”

The sheets are bunched around Arthur's hips, flowing over the lean lines of Arthur's body like a parting stream. Eames shades and shadows, striking in the hollow of his throat and the dashing trail of hair that meanders down from his navel, disappearing just out of sight. Arthur always wakes up hard. Eames teases at the outline under the sheets, one more thing to tempt him back to bed. The early hours bring out Arthur's affection, when he's still sleepy enough to be sweet and wrap himself around Eames like a vine.

_ “Eames.” _

Arthur's hand trails over the edge of the bed, reaching for him. Eames’s fingers are tingling, every nerve coming alive as he sketches in the span of Arthur's knuckles, the slim turn of his wrist, the soft hair that sweeps across his forearms. Each passing second lets the light inch in, daybreak making itself known as Eames fights for the precious twilight of Arthur so real before him. 

His head is buzzing, full of words he can't understand, women's voices that fill him with awe and wonder, that each season of his life is precious, that every act of creation brings him closer to some truth he's not meant to comprehend. His love for Arthur is no less real in this moment, this bell-strike of clarity as he captures the exact second before Arthur parts his lips to say, “Come back to me, Eames.”

Eames closes his eyes, his hand clenched around his pencil, his breath a tight pull through his nose.

“Oh, Arthur.”

The sun always rises; the light always floods in and fills the empty space in Eames’s home, in his heart. It's madness, surely, that leaves Arthur's voice ringing in his ears, that soft, bed-warm baritone that sighs out his name and sings Sam Cooke songs against his ear.

_ “Eames.” _

A chill runs through Eames, freezing him in place. It's so real, how can it all seem so real? He takes a breath, his hand shaking as he sets his pencil down. Is it real as long as he doesn't look? Eames’s chest is thick with every second he's wasted on his threshold, that pregnant pause where Arthur's waiting on the other side. Have Yusuf’s strays been replaced with Schrodinger's lover, alive and not at the same time, suspended forever until Eames dares to open the box?

_ “Eames, please.” _

His heart is pounding in his chest. The barest light illuminates the upturned expectancy of Arthur's face on the paper, dancing over the dark pools of his eyes, the fine slope of his jaw, the lines in his forehead that never fully ease. This has always been enough for Eames. Will he be struck to salt for daring to look back, cursed like Lot's wife to gaze forever at a Sodom she can never return to? If Eames dares to hope for more than a love on paper, will he glance back only to see Arthur banished to the underworld of his imagination?

The screen that shelters Eames’s bed is cast in shadow, farthest from the light creeping into his skylights. Every step drives his heart faster in his chest, sets him dizzy on his feet as he closes in. His eyes are playing tricks on him, joining his other senses in betrayal with the silhouette of Arthur in their bed, waiting for him, calling out to him. Eames clenches his hand, digging his fingernails into his palms and willing himself to wake up, to end this bacchanal of foolish hope before his heart breaks. He'll die if Arthur is in his bed. He'll never recover if he isn't. Steeling himself, Eames steps past the screen.

_ “Come back to bed, Eames.” _

Impossible things don't happen to men like Eames. They don't get happy endings and fairytale princes, happily-ever-afters and beds of roses. A strangled noise works its way out of his chest, a sigh, a sob, a laugh, a prayer, a name. He staggers to the edge of the bed and sinks to his knees.

Arthur's hand is so warm. Eames holds it in both hands, marveling at the texture of Arthur’s skin, the infinite details he's rendered into flat relief so many times. He presses it to his lips, eyes closed, because it's too much to look at Arthur's face, like staring into the sun after a lifetime of darkness. All he can do is kiss the soft skin of Arthur's palm, trace the bones of his knuckles with his lips, breathe in the secret scent of his wrist. It's all so much better than Eames has ever imagined.

“This isn't real,” Eames whispers into the cupped space of Arthur's palm. He closes his eyes, ready for it all to disappear, to wake up alone in his empty bed, to his safe little life.

_ “ _ You always say that.” Arthur's hand slides over to cup Eames’s cheek, his thumb brushing along Eames’s temple. Eames meets his eyes and everything is lost— the pale imitation of Arthur will never compare to this, the delicate musculature of his face that draws Arthur's eyebrows together with concern, the warmth of his skin, the slip of his tongue over his lips before he says,  _ “ _ Come here.”

This is something Eames has never drawn. The tense moments before, the glow that lingers after—Eames has stayed safely at the bookends of kissing Arthur, too timid to plunge into the moment of contact. It's just as well. He would have gotten it all wrong. Arthur kisses him, and something in Eames’s chest cracks open, a lock he thought could never be picked. If this is madness, it's worth the cost. On his knees, Eames leans in to catch Arthur's face in his hands, his hips pressed against the bed, and God, it's their bed, it always has been, this is Arthur’s side, the one closer to the door, and these are Arthur's lips against his, this is Arthur's hand pulling him to crawl onto their bed, Arthur's body pressed firm and warm against his.

Eames knows every detail of Arthur's body, every scar and mole and ticklish secret. Eames maps each one, tracing over every inch of Arthur. Arthur's a language he's only read on paper, and now that he can speak it out loud he realizes how much he’d missed. Arthur slats against him, tongue and groove, flush with the desperate roll of Eames’s hips, melting into the fevered prowl of his hands. Eames could never capture this. Arthur feels so good against him, every inch of him meeting Eames’s body and sighing his name.

Arthur's legs wrap around his waist and if Eames is very, very lucky, he'll die like this, with the taste of Arthur in his mouth, the beat of Arthur's pulse against his lips, the throb of his cock grazing hard and ready against Eames’s stomach. If Eames closes his eyes and never opens them, he can live here forever, he can drown in Arthur and drift away from the drab imitation of a life he's built for himself. It will never be enough after this.

“Oh, God, Eames,” Arthur sighs into his neck, his fingers scratching gentle furrows into Eames’s back as his hips start to stutter under Eames, his breath panting against Eames’s shoulder, the steel grip of his strong thighs closing around Eames’s sides like he could squeeze the life out of Eames. Arthur's going to come and he's going to take Eames with him.

Orpheus had always seemed a fool to Eames. How could he have risked everything for one glance at his love? How tragic, to stand there, so close to the world of the living, only to turn back and watch it all crumble back into shadow. 

“Arthur."

Eames understands now. He couldn't look away from Arthur's face if he tried, if God himself were offering Eames eternal salvation. He's sketched this so many times and he's come so close, like tracing over an old photograph, but even Eames could never capture the sublime radiance of Arthur when he comes. It's not that he looks like a portrait—far from it, with his nose scrunched up, and his eyes out of focus and the lilting grimace on his lips. That's what art never fully captures, the imperfection of life, the ugliness that makes it so precious. So  _ human _ . Arthur is so perfectly alive in this moment, and Eames doesn't give a damn where he came from or where he's going. Any price is worth paying for this.

“Eames,  _ Eames _ ,” and they're both gone, wet and warm and plastered against one another, hopelessly human as Eames whispers, “I love you, Arthur Darling, I love you,” until his voice gives out.

~

Eames wakes up alone. He blinks against the bright light fighting its way through his screen. Has he slept so late?  _ It's not like Arthur to let him— _

Eames sighs. There's a pillow next to his, and as Eames pulls it close he can swear it still smells like Arthur. He breathes it in, cursing himself for foolish hope. How had it all seemed so real? Eames can still feel Arthur's fingernails at his back, still taste Arthur's kiss, still smell his hair and his...  _ coffee? _

Eames sits up, sniffing the air again. Coffee, fresh and strong, the way Arthur always makes it. Eames stumbles out of bed, rubbing his eyes and following his nose like a hound.

“Hey there, sleepyhead.”

Arthur in his bed had been a dream, a feverish thing Eames could chalk up to too much drink and too little sleep. Arthur filling his old Art Student’s League mug with coffee is a miracle.

“Knew this would get you up.”

Arthur's fully dressed, at ease even in his fitted trousers and a burgundy sweater vest. He hands a speechless Eames his steaming mug of coffee and gives him a peck on the cheek, an afterthought that leaves Eames trembling. He gapes after Arthur, clutching at the mug—there's a swirl of cream in it, not too light, just the way he likes—as it scalds his hands. It's not just Arthur. Eames’s entire flat is different. There's his sofa, and the chair Arthur likes to read in, but there's a stack of architecture books on the coffee table and a second book shelf where his portrait of Arthur had hung. Arthur saunters over to the far wall, his own mug steaming in his hand as he steps under the skylights. Where Eames’s desk had been. Eames blinks. 

Eames’s desk has mirrored itself. Where it had faced the glass before, now it's turned to meet a matching surface, sloped up to make a peak where they meet. It's clear which one is Arthur's— a neat jar of pencils and his T-square, a set of plans tacked down.

“We should drop off the laundry. And I need to stop in at Flax, I’m running low on lead, and didn’t you say you needed more charcoal? Let’s stop by the C-Note, too, I haven’t seen Ruthie in an age,” and Arthur rambles on, sipping his coffee and planning their day as Eames just stands there.

It’s as though he’s pinned to the floor as the world whirls around him. Arthur stuffs their laundry into the canvas bag Eames uses to carry it to the laundromat. This easy propriety is something he’d always imagined for Arthur, but it’s striking to behold. Arthur is a wasp-waisted hurricane, corralling even the dirty clothes into order before he washes up from the coffee and wipes down the counters.

Eames takes a sip of his coffee—God, it's perfect—and almost chokes when Arthur slides behind him and wraps his arms around Eames’s bare waist.

“I love you like this, but I think we’ll scandalize the neighbors if you go out in just your drawers.”

Arthur’s cheek is warm against his shoulder, his lips pressing a soft kiss to Eames’s neck.

Eames closes his eyes. “Arthur?”

“Yes, my love?”

_ My love. _

“How long have we lived here?”

Arthur hums against him. “I think it’ll be… seven years next month?”

“Seven years,” Eames mutters, shaking his head as Arthur slides around to face him.

“What, you’re getting sick of me already?”

“Never,” and Eames might say it a little too forcefully, if Arthur’s startled expression is anything to go by, but then Arthur kisses him and Eames knows this is as real as anything he’s ever touched.

“Good.” Arthur breaks their kiss with a swat to Eames’s arse. “Now put some pants on.”

~

Everyone adores Arthur. One of Yusuf’s cats wends its way between Arthur’s legs with such fervor Eames is almost jealous, and Yusuf gives a cheerful “Oh, hello, Arthur!” over the clatter of his drums when Arthur gently deposits the wayward animal whence it came, sneezing delicately as he closes the door. Ernie and Olive are camped on the front steps to enjoy a cigarette and a vigorous debate about atheism, and they both give Arthur a welcome smile before diving back into their sophistry.

Pang’s face lights up when Arthur asks about his daughter’s progress at university, and Ruthie gives Eames a smug grin when Arthur thanks her for that Patsy Cline record. They pass by Fitzie’s and Henry waves at them both as he stubs out his break-time cigarette, giving Arthur a look that really should make Eames jealous, but he can’t fault the man for his good taste.

“Do you think Yaya made baklava today?” Arthur asks, oblivious to the mournful look Henry makes before he disappears back to his deli counter. Eames stops in his tracks.  _ Yaya _ .

“Oh, please. You always want sweets,” Arthur says decisively before taking Eames’s hand.

Even the air is different. Towed in Arthur’s wake, Eames could swear the breeze sneaking down Sullivan is sweeter, that the roses heaped in front of Nonna’s Flowers are brighter, that the espresso wafting out from The Bell is richer. The door tinkles its old bell-chime as Arthur walks in.

Arthur heads straight for their table. Eames stops, his hand over the back of his chair as he hears his name. “Eames!,” and there, perched around three steaming cups of midnight-black espresso are Ariadne, and Mal, and Yaya, sharing the same, knowing smile.

“Ladies,” Arthur says behind him, sweeping past Eames to take Yaya’s hand in his and give it a debonair kiss.

“I made you baklava.” Yaya smiles and pats Arthur on the cheek, which is more words (and facial expressions) than Eames has ever witnessed from her.  _ Isn’t it? _

“You spoil me.” Arthur gallantly offers her his arm as she gets up. She fixes Eames with a look, and as small and wrinkled and frail as she may seem, Eames’s skin prickles with the power in her gaze. For a moment, the gloaming scent of ancient pine floods him.

“You must be Arthur,” Mal says, up on her feet and taller than Eames in her pumps. She presses matching kisses to Arthur’s cheeks as Yaya toddles off to the kitchen.

“And you must be Mal. Eames has told me so much about you.”

_ He has? _

“Lies and slander, the lot of it,” Mal jokes, winking at Eames’s befuddled face. She opens her purse and frowns. “Please tell me you have a cigarette.” She places an imploring hand on Arthur’s forearm.

Arthur produces the soft-pack of Chesterfields he keeps in his breast pocket. “My last two.”

“You’re a dream,  _ mon amour _ ,” Mal sighs, and leads Arthur away by the elbow, chattering in French.

“Take this, you need it more than I do.” Ariadne slides her espresso over to Eames as he sinks down into an empty chair. They all know Arthur. Yaya’s on cheek-patting terms with him.

“Ariadne, when were Arthur and I in here last?”

“Not quite sure.” Ariadne tilts her head, her features more angelic than usual. “But Yaya woke up and was sure he’d want some baklava.”

“She always knows,” Eames mutters, and something is scratching at the base of his skull, teasing around the edges of his memory. A field of flowers, a flash of fire in Yaya’s ancient eyes, a waft of smoke from Mal’s exquisite mouth.

“What did you do?” Eames asks suddenly, his shoulder aching and his eyes squinting out the glass shopfront to see if Arthur’s there, if he’s really there, if he’s real.

“It’s what you did,” she says gently, laying her hand over his. “It’s as though you built a door. We just… jimmied the lock for you.”

_ Little witch boy _ . Eames shakes his head, the espresso bitter in his mouth.

“What am I?”

“A good man.” Ariadne squeezes his hand, and for one brief moment that Eames will never remember correctly, Eames sees her, really sees her, wreathed in flowers and innocence and the endless promise of youth, a new spring of life that will wend its way through the ages until it reaches the sea and begins anew. The Maiden.

“The world isn’t kind to people like us, Eames. When something good happens, you hold onto it, and you don’t let go.”

Eames has so many questions, so many errant pencil marks clouding the edge of his mind, things itching for answers and the frigid certainty of a blank page. But then Arthur sits across from him, his smile gleaming, the air tinged with the lingering smoke of his last Chesterfield, his eyes lighting up as Yaya plunks a heaping plate of pastry in front of him. Arthur eats while Mal continues their conversation about the jazz scene in Paris, and Yaya pats Eames’s hand before disappearing into the kitchen, and Ariadne rambles on about the new folk singer from Chattanooga she’s booked for tomorrow, and the doorbell rings as customers come and go into the endless hum of the Village. This is Eames’s life, precious and small and thrice-blessed as it is.

Arthur takes his hand as they walk home, and Eames starts with pleasant surprise when Arthur kisses him in their doorway and sighs.

“I forgot to get another pack of smokes. Will you run to Don’s and get me one? I’ll make us cocktails.” Arthur’s winning smile could convince Eames to move mountains, but still, Eames hesitates, frowning.

“We can go together, can’t we?”

Arthur pouts, one hand over his stomach. “I’m full of baklava.” He smiles, all dimples and devilish charm as he leans in, his lips brushing against Eames’s ear. “If you go, I’ll do that thing you like with my tongue.”

And Arthur’s off, up the stairs before Eames can voice any objections or finish his piteous groan, without a glance back as he turns the corner, one delicate hand riding over the balustrade. 

Eames walks to the corner store in a haze, his heart pounding harder with each second. It can’t be more than five minutes before he’s back at his door, but each one apart from Arthur stretches like an eternity.

His hand shakes as he slides the key into the lock. He’s done this a hundred times before. Arthur’s always sending him out for a pack of cigarettes, or more milk, or a copy of the Sunday Times. Isn’t he? Eames pauses on his front step, the door open as he gazes up the stairs. Arthur’s waiting for him.  _ Isn’t he? _

Eames’s pace picks up with each step as he climbs the stairs to the top, and he’s out of breath by the time he makes it to their door. He pauses, panting, his hand on the doorknob, his eyes closed. How can everything be so familiar and so dizzyingly new all at once? There’s music on the other side of his door, Eames can just make it out, and a slash of light spills out from the threshold into the timid shadow of the hall.

_ “Arthur,” _ Eames whispers, a prayer he says to himself, a ritual he’s enacted so often it’s muscle memory now. Eames opens his door, and his studio is filled with light, and music, and two martini glasses gleaming on the table. It’s the  _ Blossom Dearie _ record, of course. Arthur loves this album. 

“ _ Do I love you? Oh my, do I, _ ” Arthur trills, appearing at Eames’s side and snatching the cigarettes out of Eames’s hand. “ _ Honey, ‘deed I do _ .”

His hand is cool and firm as he laces his fingers into Eames’s and smiles. “Dance with me, Eames.”

Eames follows Arthur, and he doesn’t look back.

~

_ Paris, 1958. _

April in Paris is just like the song. Under a riot of chestnut blossoms, Eames turns the page of his newspaper and tears off another hunk of his offensively delicious baguette. Yaya would be heartbroken at his infidelity, but this city has given him the best damned bread he’s ever had in his life, and much more. He’s never truly known the charm of spring until now.

He sips his coffee and scans the next page of the American newspaper the hotel had provided. There’s a new museum opening, Peggy Guggenheim’s pet project up on Park. He’ll have to visit when he’s back in the states, although the news about entire school districts shutting down instead of embracing desegregation makes America seem markedly less palatable. Holland is supposed to be lovely in the summer. Eames glances at his watch and signals for the waiter.

“ _ Café pour deux _ ,” Eames orders, lacing on his best bored Parisian accent.

“ _ Deux _ ?” the waiter asks, narrowing his eyes as Eames nods. “For two people?” he repeats in English, holding up two fingers in case Eames is dim-witted in addition to being reprehensibly British. 

“ _ Oui, deux _ ,” Eames answers, leaning to look past the waiter and grinning at a familiar figure loping up the Rue du Bac, laden with shopping bags. Arthur does love to shop.

“Here’s Mr. Darling now.”

There’s an old sketch tucked in one of Eames’s books back home. It’s a simple thing, more of an outline really. Two men sit at an outdoor café, their coffee warm and steaming, the day bright and clear above them. They lean into one another, grinning, a smile of shared confidences and inside jokes. They’re easy in each other’s company, at home anywhere the other is found. It’s an intimate moment, but not a grand one. It’s not the heady embraces and tangled sheets of the pages that follow, or the longing glances of the ones before. It’s so small that someone walking past might miss it entirely, the few seconds of warm reunion that are only special to the people who’ve lived without them. Eames will never finish sketching this particular picture. He doesn’t need to.

“Where should we go next, Arthur Darling?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Eames.” Arthur wafts his coffee under his nose and takes a deep, contented inhale. “Wherever the fates take us.”

_ FIN _

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Pin-Up Pygmalion! [ART]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25615129) by [LemonYellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonYellow/pseuds/LemonYellow)
  * [“Dance with me, Eames.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25629856) by [Magenta_Light](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magenta_Light/pseuds/Magenta_Light)




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